Crossover Omake: A Very Strange Thanksgiving, Part 1

A Very Strange Thanksgiving, Part 1

Blake Isley

I stared at the strange portal in front of the hospital. This was most certainly not normal. A few portals had opened up between Earth-Bet and the pokemon world, courtesy of Hoopa, but I knew what those looked like. This wasn’t it.

Rather than Hoopa’s gold-ringed purple, it was a wooden door, one that could be found anywhere. Except, it was here, flush against a wall that most certainly hadn’t had a door before.

At first, I thought it was something done by Dodge, a young dimension-tinker from Toybox. He was a bit of a jokester and we were on good terms with those guys. Unfortunately, this didn’t match his style, either. He typically preferred a sci-fi theme, like something out of Stargate. And he most certainly wouldn’t have hung a sign out front that advertised a restaurant.

“The Holy Grill, huh?” I mused. There was a golden chalice, with the lip covered by a grill grate. It looked comical, the kind of sign no “serious” villain would be caught dead using. “And hey, they’re open on Thanksgiving, Ames.”

Amy snorted. “Yeah, so is Panda Express. You’re going to go in, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s clearly a parahuman power? Because you don’t know what’s on the other side? Or maybe because Aunt Sarah is going to chew you out for doing something reckless again?”

“Yeah, but who else is better suited to make first contact?”

“That depends. Do you still have aura left?” she asked. When I nodded, she snorted in annoyance. “Figures. Eight hour charity shift on Thanksgiving and you’re still fine.”

“Exactly. I can keep us safe. I’ve got a few Legends in my back pocket, too. If things get ugly, we really won’t be the ones in danger.”

“Hey, ‘us?’ Where did you get ‘us’ from? I’m tired. I want to go home.”

“Come on, Ames, it’s Thanksgiving,” I whined, giving her my best puppy eyes. “Besides, Sarah said the big feast is tomorrow because your Uncle Mike will be coming in from out of town.”

“So what?”

“So, we can have two feasts!”

She crossed her arms with a huff. “I’m not a shameless glutton like you are.”

“You’re not curious? Not even a little bit?”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Alright, fine,” she caved, as I knew she would. I carefully hid my smirk though; she could get really obstinate when she figured out I was teasing her. “But you’re going in first.”

“Obviously,” I replied as a coat of azure flames enveloped my armor.

“And you’re going to explain this shit to mom.”

“I… You know what? Fine. Carol likes me, I think.”

X

Tianyu Yue

I settled into the couch next to my wife. Her hands immediately wandered to my ears. Even now, after over a century of marriage, she still derived inordinate amounts of pleasure in playing with my ears every chance she got. I let out a contented sigh as her magic fingers lulled me into a half-sleep.

It wasn’t often that we got to relax like this. Admittedly, our busy schedules were entirely self-inflicted, but neither of us would have it any other way. That was why our relationship worked, why we were the Astral Plane’s power couple: The secret to a happy marriage was not being happy together. It was, in fact, learning to be happy apart, and then sharing that happiness. That way, you could be twice as happy.

“Husband?” she nudged me awake.

“Hmm? Is something the matter?”

“Perhaps. Did you redecorate recently?”

“No, I haven’t.” I raised my head with a sleepy blink. Looking around, I saw that there was a door that had not been there before. “Huh… That’s odd…”

“Indeed. It seems your predecessor has been taking liberties.”

“No, this isn’t Jade’s style. Besides, she’s as obsessed with alchemy as I am with cooking. I doubt she’d bother with something like this.”

“Someone has tampered with your palace. In your personal chambers, no less.”

“I don’t sense any malice, though. Do you?”

“No,” Luo Hao said, lips pursed in thought. She eyed the sign with a curious expression. “The Holy Grill… How bold. It seems to be a restaurant of sorts.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I agreed, perking up. “Usually, it’s the Lunar Palace that appears for people. It feels a little strange to be on the other side of the magic door for a change.”

We turned to face each other. Pools of verdant jade stared back at me. Nothing else needed to be said. We were, as usual, on the same wavelength. As one, we stood and marched towards the door.

No Campione could ignore such an obvious trespass into our inner sanctum. But more importantly, this was a restaurant. I wouldn’t be the Divine Chef if I didn’t test their mettle.

“Shall we?” Luo Hao asked, hand on the door with a knowing smile.

I grinned back, ears flapping eagerly. “We shall. It’s been a while since I had food made by someone else. Who knows? Maybe we can exchange our favorite smoking woods.”

X

Andy Yusung Kim

“This place is so cool~” Riley gasped, eyes full of wonder as she looked around. 

“That it is, little sister,”I hummed in agreement. Ever since we took care of Scion, there had been so little of note. I was nominally retired, and it was a droll existence. This was a welcome spot of novelty in my eyes.

The walls were lined with enchanted weapons of every type, though admittedly with a lean towards swords. Every enchantment was a masterwork, good enough that the legendary smith Doran would not have found fault with them. No, I’d even go as far as to say some exceeded his best works, perhaps even rivaling the celestial wargear of the Aspects.

Then there was the restaurant itself. It was so steeped in magic that I wasn’t sure where to look. In my capacity as the keeper of a World Rune, I examined every ward, their language as plain to me as English.

The general proximity, defense, and deterrence wards, I expected. What stood out were the wards that isolated this space as its own dimension, and simultaneously permitted its doorway to connect to a multitude of worlds at once. The space could even be edited at will, creating any kind of backdrop the master desired. This went well beyond simple “mastery” as defined by normal mages.

It was certainly impressive. I’d never seen anyone else form wards this complicated before. Had I not a World Rune, I doubted even I could have deciphered their myriad purposes. I wondered if whoever made them held the Sorcery rune. After all, seeing how I had Inspiration, it only stood to reason that the other four were somewhere out there as well.

Then, my thoughts came to a stop as a foxgirl hopped before us. She was breathtakingly gorgeous, with pink hair, orange ears and tail, and a smile as bright as the sun. “Hello~ Welcome to the Holy Grill! You’re the first to arrive! Will you be joining us for our Thanksgiving feast?”

I didn’t have the chance to answer. Riley dashed ahead to touch the woman’s tails. She grabbed one and began to run her fingers through the admittedly very luxurious fur. “S-So soft…”

“H-Hey, now,” she yelped, tugging her tails away, “only my hubby can touch those!”

“B-But they’re so fluffy…”

“Come on, Tama, you can indulge a little girl, right?” came a voice from the kitchen. Out stepped the man who I presumed was her husband.

He didn’t look like much. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties and wore a sturdy pair of dark-blue jeans and a collared, double-buttoned shirt. He also had a cowboy hat hanging behind him from a leather chinstrap. With warm eyes and a somewhat scruffy beard, he looked like a down-to-earth country boy who dabbled in cooking.

That was the surface. Inside, he was practically a supernova of mana. His soul was so dense that even the Kindred rose and took note. It was a novel experience. For the first time in my life, I met another person with a truly limitless well of mana.

“Oh, fine,” the woman called Tama sighed. She reluctantly snaked one tail towards Riley. “But your fingers better not be sticky, young lady.”

“They’re clean,” Riley yelped indignantly. “Mom says I need to wash my hands after every biotinkering session.”

“Uh-huh… We’ll see…”

I looked at the proprietor of this restaurant. Our eyes met and simultaneously rolled at their antics. I held out a hand for him to shake. “Andy Kim, though most people know me as Hyunmu.”

“John Soprano, the Heaven’s Feel,” he replied with a lazy grin. “You’ve got a whole lot of mana. I thought that door led to an Earth-Bet?”

“It does. I just have a bit extra from somewhere else.”

“Huh, you too?”

“Yeah. What’s your deal though? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else with an infinite pool before. Heaven’s Feel, huh…?”

“You recognize it?”

“Vaguely. Not gonna lie, I thought you had Sorcery.”

“I do have sorcery. It’s usually called True Magic where I’m from, though.”

“No, that’s not quite what I meant. Although, what brings you to my slice of the multiverse?”

“Heh. If anything, I think you’re in mine for the moment. But if you must know, Zelretch made me a revolving door of sorts.”

Suddenly, the dots connected. I nodded and took a seat as John passed me a menu. “Ah, I get it. I know the Wizard Marshall by reputation. This is still a restaurant, right?”

“That’s right. Order what you want. I figured I’d cook up a real Thanksgiving feast, Texas pitmaster style. As for the guests, well, we’ll see. I set a limit on the number but left everything else to the wind.”

“Nice, while we wait, can I get some sweet tea? I lived in Arizona for a while and got a bit of a taste for it.”

“Hah, Arizona? Oh, buddy, that’s not sweet tea,” he laughed as he headed towards the kitchen. “Hold on a sec, I’ll get you the real stuff.”

That was how I spent the next fifteen minutes. The “sweet tea” wasn’t so much tea as it was sugar syrup flavored with a breath of tea. I resolved to make sure Riley never got her hands on it; she was hyperactive enough as it was.

Then, the door opened and honest-to-celestials pokemon walked through. I recognized them all, of course. Pokemon wasn’t a thing in Earth-Bet, but it had been one of the series that defined my childhood so long ago.

I loved the series so much that I introduced Riley to it via an import from Earth-Aleph. It led to some interesting additions to the magical forest around my lab, and more than one sleepless night for the rest of Cauldron.

First came a gardevoir, ruby eyes shining with curiosity. She wore an extra-long spoon strapped to her hip as though it was a sword, not that I could judge. The spoon had a bedazzled handle, decked with a marble that shone in every color of the rainbow. It gave off a rather powerful aura and I regretted not following the series more closely.

Then there was some kind of gloomy primeape, or maybe an evolution I didn’t know about; I’d stopped following the series when I went to college. Third came an ampharos whose tail-bulb glowed merrily, and fourth, a meganium.

It was the meganium that gave me pause. He was huge, far larger than what I remembered from the pokedex. He was more like an actual sauropod than a pokemon. The door and restaurant had to expand just to accommodate him. And on his back rode who I could only describe as a modern day samurai.

He looked about my age, seventeen or eighteen, and glowed to my senses almost as brightly as his pokemon. I remembered that the pokemon world had natural psychics and figured he was one such person. He had gray eyes and black hair that he wore in a wolf’s tail. His sword was mostly plain, save for a marble-like gem that looked like a duller version of the one his gardevoir had.

The coolest, or hottest, part about him was his cloak. Instead of a haori, a Japanese overcoat, a volcarona clung to his back. Her six wings fluttered in the nonexistent breeze, scattering embers that refused to ignite. It seemed like both a fashion statement as well as a means of personal security.

Riley let out a high-pitched squeal that I was sure would have deafened most canines before lunging bodily at the meganium. Her arms split open along the radius and ulna, revealing a set of hextech probes and scanners.

Mom had finally caved and allowed Riley to modify herself, provided that we could be sure the cybernetic additions would not interfere with her growth. Now, Riley was a one-woman army, with a loadout that would make Colin weep with envy if he knew.

A set of drones flew from her fingertips, each shaped like little ladybugs. They began to fly all around the meganium, recording everything from his size and weight to the aromatic particulates he released with every breath. She’d no doubt get around to the rest in time, but for now, the big dino that straddled two taxonomic kingdoms had her undivided attention.

“Uh…” the samurai began, eyeing my sister’s cybernetics awkwardly. He wasn’t afraid, just a bit weirded out. He must have had an ability that could gauge threats. “Is… Is this normal?”

I waved him off. “You’re fine, Mr. Pokemon Trainer. My little sister is just very enthusiastic about biology. As you can see, she’s something of an expert in the area of cybernetic augmentations. Just think of it as a pokemon center checkup.”

“Right… Hey, I’m Aaron Fulan. And there was a door in the middle of the forest. We can go back, right? Because my sixth is off training with my mom on Mossdeep.”

“Of course,” our hostess chirped. Given John named himself as the Heaven’s Feel and True Magician, I could only assume “Tama” was in fact the Tamamo no Mae, arguably the greatest sorceress in Japanese history, if not the world. “The door will lead you to wherever you came from. But please, do join us for dinner.”

“That’s good. I don’t have to mess around with the Book of Thresholds, then,” I said as I took another sip of my drink. Extending the Low Roads on a multiversal scale was a pain in the ass, even for me. “Come on, sit. I don’t know if the pokemon world has smoked brisket, but I’m really looking forward to John’s.”

X

Bryce Kiley

I walked inside the door. A magic restaurant in my lab? Hell yes. That sounded like a fun time, especially since it was a smokehouse. I hadn’t had any in so long. Brockton Bay’s food scene was woefully lacking.

I walked into a scene of utter bedlam. The interior was impossibly large, as though we were outside. Empty desert stretched for miles, obviously expanded via spatial fuckery. At this point, I was no slouch when it came to magic, but I could readily admit that the wards here far surpassed my own ability.

The dining area and kitchen were encircled by pillars that held masterwork weapons. No, Noble Phantasms. I recognized some of them well enough considering I’d had Type Moon as a specialization a while back, especially Excalibur. That was a truly unforgettable weapon. The Sword of Promised Victory hung from the mantle, exalted above its Round Table brethren. Clearly, the owner had some connection to the Nasuverse.

Sitting around the dining area was an equally imposing cast. I spotted at least a dozen people and… pokemon… There was also a foxgirl who was almost certainly Tamamo no Mae and a bunnyboy with real ears, not unlike my zoans.

I heard a deafening boom and turned to find the reason this ridiculous spatial expansion was necessary. A few of the guests were sparring in enclosed arenas, contained within bounded fields that prevented the dust from reaching the spectators.

In one sparring arena, a man wielding a pair of blue scissors was dueling a mega gardevoir with a spoon. To my surprise, her trainer fought alongside her, a katana in hand that glowed with the rainbow light of mega evolution. An aura master then, and more along the line of Sir Aaron of Rota or Bruno of the Elite Four. As someone who also fought alongside his partner pokemon, I approved.

Unfortunately, the two were getting their shit kicked in. They were incredible by any conventional measure, but the masked man was greater still. He was faster and stronger, and when the gardevoir tried to grab him with her telekinesis, it was as if her power fizzled out on contact with him. Even teleportation failed; it was as if he had eyes in the back of his head.

In another arena, an impossibly beautiful Chinese woman was giving an annihilape a lecture about kung fu moves. Rather than grow angry or lash out, the pokemon soaked up the lesson like a sponge. By the glimmer in his eyes, I would have thought he’d heard the secret of enlightenment or something.

“What’s the hold up?” Amy grumbled as she pushed her way past me. And then, she froze. She stood just past the doorway and did a complete shutdown, a full “blue screen of death” moment. “Bryce?”

“Yes, Ames?”

“What the fuck am I looking at?”

I couldn’t help myself. I pointed to a corner of the dining area, where a meganium was being examined by a little, blonde girl. “I think that’s Bonesaw in the corner over there molesting a green dinosaur.”

“Holy fuck!” Amy yelped. She drew her pistol, only to freeze as a long, fluffy tail held her wrist in a gentle but immovable grip.

“Now, that’s not very nice,” the impossibly gorgeous kitsune said. She most certainly hadn’t been next to us a moment ago. “There shall be no violence in the Holy Grill.”

I gestured towards the great deal of violence happening behind her. “Funny you should say that…”

“There shall be no unsanctioned violence in the Holy Grill,” she clarified. She smiled like an angel but I was reminded of the many, many stories about the vindictiveness of kitsune, especially this particular kitsune.

“Right. Fair enough. You heard the foxgirl, Ames,” I said, dragging her away.

We sat at a nearby table and watched the spar. And if that put us far from the Bonesaw lookalike, then all the better. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was looking at a multiversal merging event of some sort. There was a good chance that this Riley Davis was one of those redeemed variants in fanfics, but I didn’t want to risk it.

“Bryce?” Amy whispered. “You still have that spare zoan?”

“I do, why?” I asked.

Her face flushed red. “I… I think we should revisit that fox zoan…”

I looked at her, then the kitsune woman who’d flounced her way back into the kitchen. She returned with floating trays laden with snacks. “Pfftt! You’re horny.”

“Shut up!” she hissed, as if she was fooling anyone.

“Well, she is very pretty… Was it the ears or her grabbing you insistently? My, Amy Dallon, a submission fetish?” I cackled as my best friend tried to murder me for the fourth time today.

“Shut your mouth and give me the zoan. Her biology was perfect, alright? I want to take notes while I still remember.”

“She is rather perfect, isn't she?” I teased with a salacious wiggle of my eyebrows. 

“Die in a fire, Bryce Kiley.”

“You realize you can’t make fun of Sabah and her bunnygirl fetish anymore, right?”

“Fuck you.”

“Before or after the zoan?”

“I hate you. Just give me the blank zoan.”

“What happened to no carnivores?”

“Actually, foxes are omnivores,” I heard behind us. The kitsune was back, and with a smile that wouldn’t be amiss on the Cheshire Cat. Or maybe she’d never left. The copy of her walking around with snacks shimmered and vanished as she gave my mortified partner a knowing smirk. “And yes, I am a perfect specimen in every way possible. Alas, I am also a taken woman.”

I laughed myself hoarse as Amy did her best to sink into the ground. “Say, you’re Tamamo no Mae, right? The Heroic Spirit?”

“Oh? You know me?”

“I recognize the pink hair. And just three tails, even if you could have nine.”

“Nine is just pretentious,” she sniffed. “Now, three, there’s a lucky number. And, it’s the perfect amount to cuddle with while not taking too long to floof by hand.”

“I’m sure you’d know better than I.”

The spar came to an end. The gardevoir and her trainer bowed respectfully. The Asian man, maybe a year or two older than me, responded in kind before shrinking his scissors. I knew I had no room to criticize, what with my favored weapons being roller blades, but I couldn’t help but think there were more practical options.

He strolled over to the not-Bonesaw and tucked her under his arm before coming our way. Judging by the reproachful look he gave Amy, he’d heard what we said about the blonde.

“Hey, so you two must also be from Earth-Bet, huh?” he began. “I’m Andy, and yes, this is Riley, my adopted sister.”

“Oppa, I can introduce myself,” the tiny blonde whined. Now that we were closer, I could see that she was a tad younger than she should be, maybe ten or eleven instead of twelve.

“Alright, go ahead, little sister.”

“I am Riley Grace Davis-Kim, the one and only Nightingale, chief medical officer of Cauldron,” she said, thumbing herself proudly.

Amy looked horrified. “Someone thought making Bonesaw their CMO was a good idea? Which lunatic decided that?”

Andy coughed awkwardly. “Different realities, Panacea… You’re still Panacea, right? Funny thing, that. Panacea never triggered in my world.”

“R-Right… God, I’m going to be so fucking confused by this…”

“Swear,” Riley said.

“What?”

“You said a naughty word. You need to pay the cookie tax.”

“The cookie tax,” Amy said flatly.

“The cookie tax,” Riley confirmed with all the seriousness of a coroner.

“I… You know what? Fine. I don’t have a cookie, but I do have a strawberry cheesecake-flavored yam,” she replied. She dug around in her robe and withdrew a purple not-potato. “Here. You can have this, kid.”

“I take it she’s past her ‘all biotinkering is evil’ phase?” Andy asked as he took a seat next to me. There was something about the older boy that unnerved me. He wasn’t threatening per se, but it was as if there was a constant aura of danger or finality about him.

“She is. Tinker of Fiction,” I answered, pointing at myself. “I swap specializations from different settings every few weeks. You?”

“Rune of Inspiration. Ah, that’s from Runeterra. You know, League of Legends.”

“Huh, that explains the scissors. They looked familiar.”

“Gwen’s. Neat, huh?”

“Very. So, is this a powwow of people who got out of context powers in Worm?”

“Eh, not really.” He pointed towards the pokemon trainer. “Aaron’s never heard of Worm. Oh, and the bunny and his wife over there. They’re from Campione.”

“Campione… Wait, the crazy, kitchen sink mythology anime with gods and stuff?”

“Yup. They’re both Campione.”

I winced at that. “The obvious Chinese woman should be Luo Hao then. I don’t recognize the bunny.”

“Tianyu,” he filled me in. “He’s a chef like John, the guy who owns this place. He says it’s nice to not have to cook for a change and decided to join us for the feast.”

“Weird. What about John? I recognize Tamamo no Mae.”

“She’s his wife, and he also started in Earth-Bet. Lucky bastard got Heaven’s Feel. The Third True Magic, not the crappy ritual war.”

As we talked, the door opened, revealing a man in burnt-red armor and a second Amy Dallon. He looked around and, seeing that none of us bothered with a secret identity, removed his helmet, revealing yet another person about our age. Seeing the pokemon, his eyes lit up and immediately turned into a big raikou.

That was odd. Humans couldn’t turn into pokemon as far as I knew, but maybe there was a bit of cosmic weirdness going on.

That started another set of spars. This time, it was the ampharos and the volcarona against the raikou. If that man was even half as strong as the real deal, then I didn't like their chances.

“SAINT, you want to come out? You can go hang out with the others if you want,” I told him. I also made a note to pick the samurai's brain later. Any training advice from a native of the pokemon world would no doubt be invaluable.

“Pory,” he trilled. He emerged from my helmet and headed off to join the fantastical superfauna crowd.

“Interesting,” Andy hummed. “You had Pokemon as a specialization then?”

“The very first,” I confirmed. “He’s been my assistant ever since. You wouldn’t believe how helpful an AI assistant can be.”

“Not bad. I started out by mass-producing potions from League of Legends. I didn’t have an AI helper, but the PRT bent over backwards to make sure I had all the resources I needed.”

“What about the NEPEA-5? Is that not a thing in your world?”

“It was. I was the one who got it amended. Turns out, the government doesn’t mind parahumans in business ventures so long as that parahuman is a Ward who revolutionizes the medical industry. Are you a Ward? You look a bit young.”

“Hah, funny thing about that. I started as a villain, made up a whole, all-knowing thinker persona to cover my tracks, and eventually transitioned into a hero when I had the resources I needed. I’m indie now.”

“You don’t say. I joined Cauldron.”

“I figured, what with how Riley introduced herself. You must have arrived on Earth-Bet pre-canon. She looks young, younger than the one in my version.”

“I did. I’m proud to say I kept them from making a lot of their worst blunders,” Andy said with a satisfied smile. As he should. Knowing Cauldron, that sounded like a full-time job. He turned to his sister, just in time to keep her from tickling him. “Yes, Riley?”

“Oppa, try this! This stuff is so weird,” Riley chirped, nudging a strawberry cheesecake-flavored yam towards him. “I need a greenhouse.”

“You have greenhouses. Six of them.”

“I need another. I’ll make candy-fruits. And cake-fruits. And meat-fruits. And fruit-fruits… Okay, maybe not that last one.”

As we talked, the second Amy walked over. She looked at herself fiddling with the zoan and sighed. “Please tell me you’re not my evil clone…”

My Amy looked up and tossed the zoan at her. “Catch.”

“Wha–”

I let out a snort of laughter as Amy’s multiversal clone promptly shut down. “Really, Ames? That was mean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Every Amy should bear witness to the glory that is an unattuned zoan,” she sniffed imperiously.

“Is she okay?” Riley asked, poking the older girl.

“She’s fine. I did the same thing when Bryce first showed me that thing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a zoan from One Piece, a different reality,” Andy answered his little sister. “It must have been another of Bryce’s specializations.”

“Yup. That one’s blank,” Amy added. “Basically, when you eat it, it turns you into an animal hybrid and gives you a brute package.”

That started a whole conversation about zoans, biotinkers, and different ways of getting two separate DNA sequences to play nice with each other. Andy and I participated for a bit, but it was clear that with two Amys and a Riley, they had plenty of expertise between them. They went on long enough for the new Amy to recover and join them, babbling excitedly about ideas my Amy had already had months ago.

Seeing them made me chuckle. I took a photo for posterity. One day, maybe I’d show it off on PHO randomly, with zero explanations. “Two Panaceas and a Bonesaw arguing over a meat-tumor,” sounded perfect. It’d be funny to see how quickly my Earth-Bet could implode on itself.

John joined us in short order. He offered me a drink and the three of us got to talking about some of the magical artifacts we’d made. Andy showed off the Mask, which apparently made him a literal god of death. That explained why he made me so damn nervous. John gave a quick demonstration of runic enchantments as taught by Scathach. As for me, I had my share of artifacts I’d made of course, but I was clearly the junior contributor here, at least on the magic side.

I’d been a cape for less than a year and a half, but I was considered the greatest tinker alive, especially after I killed the Simurgh and Leviathan. People assumed I always had a plan, or that The GOAT did, which was the same thing. Being given advice on enchanting, from people who could give me advice, was a novel experience.

“Oh, pardon me,” John said, standing. The door began to open yet again. “That should be our final guests now.”

“You know when the door opens?” I asked. “Do you know where it connects to?”

“More than you’d think, less than I’d like. For example, this one should be some version of Harry Potter. You know what that is, right?”

“I do. I had it as a specialization a while back.”

Andy picked up the conversation as John headed off to greet the new pair, a boy and a girl. The boy was a Slytherin while the girl was a Gryffindor, an interesting couple, possibly a Romeo and Juliet schtick. “What’d you make? They have some interesting stuff.”

“Not much. I literally spent the whole month making a batch of liquid luck, which I used to cheese a win against the Faerie Queen when she decided I was ‘ruining the stage’ or something.”

“Oof, I feel that. Ciara’s a huge pain in the neck. Lucky for me, I’m a Cauldron executive so I had Fortuna make a Path to getting her therapy. Trust me, having the thinker-yes as your best friend is insanely helpful.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. Let me guess, Contessa hooked her up with Jessica Yamada?”

“Yup. That woman’s the true MVP of Worm.”

I held up my drink, a toast to the magic therapist. “By the way, did you know Harry Potter potions can’t be automated? There’s something about magical resonance and arithmancy that rejects machines, even magical machines. I have to get around to making another one if I want to guarantee a win on Khonsu, but it’s such a huge time-sink.”

“Khonsu’s the time manipulator, right? I got David therapy too, not Dr. Yamada for a change, so I only ever dealt with the original three,” he said, voice audibly smug.

“Bastard, you arrived pre-canon.”

“And I made good use of that time. So? Want some help against Khonsu? Leave something you own with me to act as a dimensional catalyst and I’ll build the Low Roads over to your slice of the multiverse.”

“Got anything to deal with time bubbles? I can handle him fine, but I’m having trouble protecting everyone around me.”

“I’m Death. My plan is just to stab him real fast. And if things get too bad, I can just… refuse to reap souls.”

“Seriously? Kindred, right? So Lamb’s Respite?”

“Bingo.”

“That’s such bullshit. You’re bullshit, Andy.”

“Damn straight. You said you beat Leviathan and Simurgh, right?”

“Right. It’s Kohnsu and the twins for me. Any tips to counter stasis bubbles?”

“Hmm, I have a few ideas. What’s your main kit so far?”

We continued talking until John got our attention. Everyone had arrived, so it was finally time for dinner. I drooled as platters of food emerged from the kitchen, carried by mirage-like clones of Tamamo.

There were massive piles of beef and pork ribs, thick slabs of brisket, and enough chicken wings to drown a small child in. And though we had no turkey, John brought forth several smoked ducks, which were, according to the bunny, the superior fowl.

We gathered around a giant table, with enough food on a lazy susan to make the wood creak. Tianyu insisted on contributing his personally brewed wine and offered a toast to the host.

This was the strangest company I’d ever shared. I had a feeling tonight would be a night to remember.

Author’s Note

Here it is, part one of the Thanksgiving omake which includes the main characters of (most) of my fics. It’s almost entirely slice of life, as you’d expect.

Animal Fact: The clouded leopard is the bridge between big and small cats. It can’t quite roar, but it does have the longest fangs and tail relative to its body size. Its fangs can be two inches long and its tail can be three feet long.